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AssigneeMitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsShoji Yoshikawa, Katsuhiko Yamada, Haruhiko Shimoji, Masao Inoue, Norimasa Yoshida, Katsumasa Miyatake
Estimating the term…
An apparatus for determining the attitude of an artificial satellite arranged to narrow attitude candidates down to a correct one in a short time. The apparatus has star sensors, star catalog data bases, star identification sections in each of which star images output from the star sensors are collated with a star catalog with respect to each star sensor to output a group of corresponding candidates, attitude computation sections for computing a value of an attitude candidate of the artificial satellite with respect to each corresponding candidate, an attitude updating section for updating the value of the attitude candidate on the basis of the star images output from the star sensor and the star catalog, and an attitude propagation section for computing the value of the attitude candidate at the present sampling time from the value of the attitude candidate at the preceding sampling time and the artificial satellite body angular velocity. An attitude candidate unification section for comparing the values of a plurality of attitude candidates to combine the same into one is provided in a loop formed by the attitude updating section and the attitude propagation section.
An apparatus for determining the attitude of an artificial satellite comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.